Category: Random observations

So…

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Ranger Bard

Alignment:
Lawful Good characters are the epitome of all that is just and good. They believe in order and governments that work for the benefit of all, and generally do not mind doing direct work to further their beliefs.

Race:
Humans are the ‘average’ race. They have the shortest life spans, and because of this, they tend to avoid the racial prejudices that other races are known for. They are also very curious and tend to live ‘for the moment’.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki’s symbol is a unicorn head.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)

Ecthelion says:

Suffering is cause by desire. Stop desiring to waste you money on sparkly stuff and you’ll be a lot happier!

A contrary point of view is that one ought to spend all one’s money, so that one has none left, and only then will one be happy because it is only then that the really important things in life become apparent. I leave it to someone else to test this theory.

Of course, Master Yoda, whom is totally unconcerned with money, would say:

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Ecthelion et al, pleez bewear tha Monkey King; not a fliverous fret.

Karen made this cute new coat for Random. Unfortunately the material didn’t prove to be the sturdiest choice, as Random’s already managed to pull a few threads. I suspect there might be a corduroy coat in the making soon.

I updated the People page on my web site. Basically, somebody finally got a web site. I was forbidden, under pain of death, to link directly to the new web site directly from my blog, but this seems like a neat little loophole. Anyway, make sure you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the People page to find the new link. :-)

Below is a draft e-mail that I wrote a few weeks ago, intending to send it to the Level 7 mailing list at DSTC. Note the word draft. It is obviously miles too long and far too, well, preachy to be coming from a mere Ph.D. student. All the same, it does contain the sentiments I wanted to get across, albeit in a long winded fashion. It didn’t get sent for a number of reasons, but mainly because I was hoping to have submitted the final version of my thesis before saying farewell to the DSTC. With the recent news about the closure of the DSTC, I figured I’m probably about the last person to be sending farewell e-mails to Level 7, so I’ve relegated my farewell to this blog entry. Anyway, here it is…

Dear all,

It has come time for me to say goodbye to the DSTC after five years. I began as an honours student affiliated with the M3 project, which doesn’t get mentioned much these days, largely due to the direction it began to take after a large German corporation became involved. But hey, I learned a lot during that year, and the experiences I had convinced me to come back and do a Ph.D. Since that time, I’ve been affiliated with the PACE project as a Ph.D. student. It’s been great.

First of all, I’d like to thank Ted McFadden for being my "DSTC Contact person" and for just being plain cool. Thanks to the other DSTC Ph.D. students past and present (Suzanne Little, James Cole, Brett Campbell, Karen Henricksen, David Hearnden, Ryan Wishart and others) for sharing your experiences and allowing me to share mine. I am grateful to the sys admins for doing the often thankless job that they do (especially for helping to clear up my desk which had gathered five years of my own junk and who knows how many years of Andry’s junk). Thanks to everybody at the DSTC I’ve ever had the pleasure of having lunch with (because those were some of the best moments). Lastly, thank you all for helping to create an atmosphere conducive to research and learning. Thanks for helping me when I needed help and knowing when I needed to be challenged. You all should know the tremendous difference you make to the life of a young (I hope I am still numbered among the young :-) researcher, and it is really appreciated. I have truly been made to feel a part of the DSTC, despite my lowly status as a Ph.D. student.

The DSTC is a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, firstly as an honours student back in 2000 and then as a Ph.D student since that time, it’s been the perfect place to learn and grow as a researcher and as a person. One would be hard pressed to find another IT organisation in Australia with such a distinguished array of intelligent, knowledgeable and friendly staff (and that includes admin/business staff like Liz, Doug and Naomi). Off the top of my head I can think of DSTC staff/students (past and present) who are graduates of MIT, INRIA and other educational institutions that have come to be considered world class in our general field, who have been awarded Honorary/Adjunct Professorships, who have written books with some of the household names in our industry (e.g. James Gosling), who have received university medals, who have been named the University Graduate of the Year, who have been awarded internships/residencies at the Sun Microsystems and IBMs of this world, and who the media regularly interviews for their expert opinions. But that’s just the honour roll I’ve been able to think of in 30 seconds, and doesn’t even begin to touch upon the real work, the real research that has been and is still being conducted in this place. To have been part of that, if only for five years or so, has been an honour and an experience I won’t forget. It would be a shame if we ever forgot about these wonderful achievements and the accomplishments to which you’ve all contributed over the years.

I wish you all the very best in the future wherever you might be, and hope that you continue to conduct world class research, and afford the same opportunities to the next generation of Ph.D. students as you have afforded me.

Although I’m sending this farewell e-mail, you might still run into me from time to time when (if?) my thesis examiners send back their reports and I have to address their comments. In the meantime I’ve taken employment at a small business in Toowong, as those of you who read Planet DSTC would already know.

Regards,
Ricky

Why is it that if you search, on Google, for the term university with the pages from Australia option selected, The University of Queensland appears as the second hit (after Monash), yet if you search for the term university australia with or without the pages from Australia option selected, UQ does not even make the first page of results (in fact, it is the last hit on page 7 of the results!!!), even though the word Australia appears on the home page? I even checked the version of the home page that Google has cached to make sure the word Australia appears in it: it does. What am I missing here? These days I, rightly or wrongly, use Google as a fast reputation check, whereby I suppose I’m using the logic if it’s high on Google‘s list of results for a particular query, then at least the brand/institution/shop/etc is well known, and this might imply that it has a good reputation (it might not, but at least it’s a good starting point). If international students, corporations, other universities and so on are compiling a quick list of Australian universities for whatever purpose by using Google and UQ isn’t showing up, surely this is a Bad Thing (for UQ). Perhaps this is why UQ isn’t in Google’s list of universities.

I always wondered why Tony Blair supported the US in the War in Iraq. Could it be that Britain supported the war in Iraq on the condition that the US would later back Blair’s debt relief agenda? I’m not saying this is what I think, but it is an interesting possibility. I know I’m not the only one who thought Blair’s support for the Iraq war was out of character and not entirely in keeping with Labour policy. I’ve written on this topic before, saying that before Blair can pursue the noble causes of third world debt relief and climate change, two conditions would have to be met. Firstly Labour would need to be re-elected and secondly Blair would have to win over the other members of the G8, notably the Americans. Well, the first condition has certainly been met, and it looks increasingly likely that the second has also been met. I await the G8 meeting in Scotland next month with interest.

I find the use of big words when little ones will do quite pretentious, too, and I steer clear of them where possible. :) Unfortunately, in this instance we had little choice, because we were discussing two points of view that, for better or worse (I say worse), have been labelled with those big words by other researchers. I’m flattered that someone (other than Ben) actually took the time to read that diatribe (if "read" is too strong a word for what took place, then please replace with something more appropriate).